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Italy’s populist Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has said he hopes the Brexit negotiations “conclude well for the United Kingdom”. Yet the new Five Star Movement-League coalition government has been surprisingly silent on what Italy needs from the negotiations.

A lot is certainly at stake for Italian business. Brits love their Chianti or Prosecco: at least 12 per cent of all Italian exports of wines, drinks and alcohol beverages go to the UK, for a total sum of $1.1 billion per year (€937 million), according to Confindustria, the General Confederation of Italian Industry.

"We are all very worried because the situation is very uncertain," said Cesare Cecchi, chairman of the Cecchi wine dynasty, summing up the feeling among wine industry producers in Italy. Italian agri-foods exporters have shared similar concerns.

Between June 2016 and June 2017, Italy exported €22.7 billion of goods to the UK, states a July 2017 industry report. The trade balance is weighed distinctly in Italy’s favour at more than €10 billion.

The ‘Made in Italy’ brand has always been strong in the UK. If no agreement is reached on geographical indications, Italian food and beverage exports alone would lose €1 billion, according to a 2018 statement by Italian national farmers’ union Coldiretti.

Bad for small business...

The British Chamber of Commerce for Italy represents both British companies trading in Italy and Italian companies with UK interests. “There’s no templated impact or concern that is consistent among members,” Daniel Shillito, the organisation’s president, told The Local.

“Some businesses have been apathetic or passive in their approach, taking a ‘we’ll wait until the end’ approach. Some have a contingency plan – especially those that have British trade.”

The chamber has approximately 300 members, 40 percent of whom are British or of British heritage – the rest are Italian or European. The larger multinationals are more insulated to Brexit because of their experience.

“Energy and transport multinationals are always dealing with geopolitical situations. Brexit is a shock but there are others for them. SMEs are the most affected,” says Shillito.

At least 80 percent of the members of the British Chamber of Commerce for Italy – 70 to 80 percent of which, according to Shillito, are tax advisory firms, accountants, translation companies, banking and insurance firms, or companies in manufacturing (mainly automobiles), life sciences and pharmaceuticals – are centred around Milan. Companies in pharma, public administration, aviation and infrastructure support are also clustered in and around Rome.

With only a few months to go until Brexit, the Italian government is not as prepared as many of its northern counterparts in the EU – the Netherlands, Germany, France and several Scandinavian countries have all set up inter-ministerial committees on Brexit. Italy has not. At least, nothing has been made public.

“Italian trade sectors are generally unprepared” too, says Shillito. In the luxury goods sector, however, companies have been forced to make changes due 18-month seasonal cycles because of stock.

“Some smaller, luxury industry-exposed companies have made contingency plans,” Shillito told The Local. “Some have relocated their e-commerce back to Italy. Some have closed divisions in the UK.”

... but good for Milan?

Milan continues to advertise itself as an alternative for financial firms in the UK concerned about passport rights in the EU post-Brexit.

Within 24 hours of the UK’s decision to leave the EU, Milan’s mayor Giuseppe Sala could already spy opportunity for his city. “Brexit is bad news for the EU but may be an opportunity for Milan that could welcome the economic realities fleeing London,” he tweeted on June 24th, 2016.

The London Stock Exchange owns its Italian counterpart, Borsa Italiana, and Shillito reckons “it’s not a longbow to suggest that if there needs to be outsourcing/devolution of services, Milan and Italy could well benefit.”

“Milan could take a substantial piece of the market exiting London,” Bepi Pezzulli, chairman of Select Milano, a lobby group for UK-Milan trade, told The Local earlier this year.

That optimism has so far failed to bear fruit, as most banks or businesses that have relocated operations from the UK because of Brexit have sought other EU hubs.

“The problem is that the Italian regulatory infrastructure is not set up anywhere near the capacity of the UK financial services environment,” Daniel Shillito told The Local. “Milan is a minnow compared to the size of UK financial services.”

“One of the major concerns to us in Italy is what registration scheme the Italian government is going to adopt, presuming there is a deal,” Jeremy Morgan, vice chair of British in Europe and a committee member of British in Italy, told The Local.

The hope is that the current system for EU residency will be applied, because a completely new residency permit specifically for Brexit could cause confusion in its implementation at regional level, causing substantial headaches for Italy’s British community, which Morgan estimates is between 26,000 and 65,000 strong. Such numbers are hard to quantify: there are 28,000 Brits in Italy, according to ISTAT – Italy’s national institute of statistics – the largest proportion of which are in Lombardy, Lazio and Tuscany.

“The Citizens Rights agreement gives EU Member States the right to introduce new administrative procedures for British nationals resident in their countries. The Italian government has so far given us no indication that they will introduce new administrative processes. We will inform you as soon as we are made aware of any changes,” Jill Morris, the British ambassador to Italy, wrote in a statement on September 14th, 2018. The British Council in Milan is hosting a town hall meeting on September 27th.

Another potential quagmire for Brits in Italy is whether people who have applied for citizenship by March 29th, 2019, in Italy will be treated as third-country nationals or EU citizens. EU nationals can apply for citizenship after four years of residency; the minimum residency period for third-country nationals to apply is ten years.

“Lots of people want to apply for Italian citizenship to safeguard their rights,” says Morgan. British in Italy have held meetings with the UK’s Business Secretary Greg Clark, have been heard by the Italian Senate and are regularly in touch with Italy’s Brexit representative to the EU, Pierluigi D’Elia.

“The noises we have been hearing is that they [Italy] want to maintain the current system,” adds Morgan.

This article originally appeared as part of The Local's Europe and You newsletter, a weekly dose of news, analysis, insights and events about Brexit and the EU27. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here.

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